Living Lab Radio

New York, London, Milan, Paris: the fall fashion weeks are over, the newest trends have been declared. And the whole cycle will repeat in a few months, with the winter - and then spring - fashion shows.

Scientists are people. There are protocols and systems to make sure personal beliefs don’t unduly influence scientific results. But sometimes, their personal and professional lives collide or overlap in important ways.

This week on Living Lab Radio: There are few parenting decisions that evoke more controversy than whether and how long to breastfeed. But it looks like feeding babies with animal milk dates back at least 5,000 years in early agricultural communities in Europe. Julie Dunne, Postdoctoral Researcher in Archaeology, University of Bristol , recently published evidence of clay baby bottles from archaeological sites in Germany. Edwin Kim is a researcher at UNC Chapel Hill who is working to develop

A U.N. special report on the impacts of climate change on the ocean sparked dire headlines such as UN report on world’ oceans is damning: We’re all in big trouble . Or, from the New York Times: The World’s Oceans are in Danger . While true, those headlines don’t tell the whole story.

On October 10 th , the twenty scientists who make up the Independent Particulate Matter Review Panel will meet to review the Environmental Protection Agency’s air quality standards for particulate matter. The only catch is, EPA disbanded the panel a year ago. This meeting is being hosted by the Union of Concerned Scientists in an effort, they say, to ensure that science and scientists continue to be part of the process of setting air quality standards. “We've been following this for a long time

When the 2020 census gets underway in April, it won’t be with the traditional questionnaires in the mail. Instead, for the first time, most households will receive an invitation to participate in the census online. The switch is billed by the Census Bureau as both a technological innovation and a cost-saving measure. But it could leave communities with limited internet access significantly under-counted. That is a major concern for Native American communities on tribal lands. The Federal

“I would just think we shouldn't vape until we clear this clear this up. And you know the debate in some of the some of the physician community is “Well, I don’t want my patient to go back to smoking cigarettes.” You know, no one wants that - an activity that’s responsible for killing half of people who do it. But this is until we sort out this acute epidemic, and then, once we do, we need to get back to looking at the chronic effects of all vaping.” -David Christiani This week on Living Lab

Vaping has now been linked to at least 11 deaths, and more than 500 people have hospitalized with vaping-related lung illness. Here in Massachusetts, Governor Charlie Baker has declared a public health emergency and a four month ban on the sale of all e-cigarettes.

Physics is one of the oldest fields of scientific study, with some of the most mature theories and laws about how the world works. But those theories don’t always match up perfectly with each other.

By Joshua Conrad Jackson , University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Michele Gelfand , University of Maryland Two trends have defined the past decade and both have been on display at this year’s session of the United Nations General Assembly.